Faster Than Falling: The Skylighter Adventures

by Nathan Van Coops

  “Wallace! Leave that be. It belongs to Samra.”

  Wallace glanced down at them and frowned, then grudgingly withdrew the hammock from his collar.

  “Best get up there and grab what’s yours,” Sunburn said. “We’ll be cutting that lot loose once the lift pods are out.”

  Samra crawled up the netting to the side of the engine nacelle. Wallace handed her the hammock with an exaggerated bow. “Here ya go, Your Brightness. Won’t have it be said I was stealing nothing from the captain’s pet.”

  Samra narrowed her eyes and snatched up the hammock. “Good.” Wallace climbed higher in the rigging and began cutting away a different section of Cirra Sola. “And I’m not a pet!” Samra called after him.

  Samra studied the gash in the tendrils that used to be her home. It didn’t look like much now. Whole sections of the globe were missing. There was a corner of the Holcomb’s aerie protruding from the netting, but most of the living areas had been jettisoned. The section of the tendrils that Khloe’s family occupied was missing completely.

  Samra couldn’t help but wonder what they were doing now. Khloe was probably having fits about the loss of her clothes and her rock crystal jewelry collection. Jerem Stormblower would probably adjust okay. Last Samra had seen, his personal belongings mostly consisted of bad portrait drawings he did to impress girls, and dirty sketches he did to impress his guy friends. The patch archives wouldn’t exactly suffer from the loss of his art.

  Samra’s eyes settled on the section of the aerie that used to belong to her parents and her thoughts flashed to the last time she’d seen them—her father’s disappointed glare, her step-mother’s crushing grip on her arm. Had they forgiven her in her absence, or were they now relieved to no longer have her chaos in their lives?

  If the ship successfully carried her home to the patch, would she even be welcome?

  The thought chilled her and she did her best to cast it away. Kip would at least welcome her. If her parents wouldn’t have her, perhaps they could run off together, the way they’d imagined before things went so terribly wrong.

  The old woman named Warehime waved a pair of colored flags from the rear of the ship, signaling the aircraft behind them. As Samra plucked whatever clothing and personal belongings she could salvage from the ruins of her tendril pocket, the other ships advanced on their position.

  There were four of them.

  The closest was the black, single-envelope airship with the red sunburst on the nose. It was significantly larger than the Restless Fury, and by the time Samra had climbed down from the cargo nets with her armful of belongings, it was looming overhead blocking out the sun. There was something strapped near the stern that looked like a smaller ship, or parts of one. It looked familiar, but with the sun behind it, she had a hard time making out its details.

  A flagman on the bigger ship was signaling back to Warehime.

  “They ask for permission to board, Captain!” Warehime called from the tail.

  Captain Savage stalked across the deck to the stern rail and looked up at the hulking airship. “Permission granted.”

  A few moments later, ropes were hurled from the nose of the bigger ship and secured to the deck of the Restless Fury. Two men climbed off the nose of the higher ship and glided down the ropes in a feat of acrobatic athleticism that was impressive even by Samra’s standards.

  When the men reached the deck, they immediately linked their lines together and began to operate a device that made the rope ratchet through it. Up above, a sort of swing, dangling between the lines, began to descend. Standing on the swing was a young man that Samra couldn’t take her eyes off of.

  It wasn’t that he was handsome. He was, but it was his smile that commanded her attention. It was as though he was in the middle of telling a joke and had yet to deliver the punch line. As he descended to the Restless Fury, his amusement only seemed to grow. The expression on the captain’s face was suffering the opposite effect. She was scowling at the man by the time he set foot on the deck. Her fingers tapped impatiently at her hips.

  “Hello, my darling sister,” the young man said, as he spread his arms. “So good of you to consider the opinions of the rest of the fleet for a change before dragging us off course again.” He grinned his bright smile at the rest of the assembled crew. “And everyone looks surprisingly well, considering the cramped conditions aboard your—” His eyes landed on Samra and her armful of belongings. “Oh my! What’s this you’ve found?”

  Captain Savage crossed her arms. “If you and the rest of the fleet could keep up for once, I wouldn’t have to do all the navigating.”

  The man strode over to Samra and leaned over to be at her level. “Well, look at you. A regular little plant person, aren’t you? Green and everything.”

  “I’m not green,” Samra retorted. “Babies are green. I’m twelve.”

  “Oh, well, pardon me,” the man replied. “You talk, too!” He stretched out a gloved hand and attempted to poke Samra in the shoulder. She backed away.

  “We need to make a decision, Eric,” Captain Savage said. “There are more of those giant pods in that group. If we want to catch them we need to get over the forest.”

  “Well, your little dinghy might wriggle through, but there’s no way the Savage Stranger is fitting through those trees. The rest of the fleet either. We don’t all share your diminutive proportions.”

  “I wasn’t talking about going through. I’m talking about going over.”

  “Over?” The man turned and scoffed at his sister. “It’s nearly frozen up there this time of year. Cold enough here as it is. Not to mention the air being too thin. The crews will pass out in five minutes at that altitude. I had a hard enough time getting them through the mountains. Eight thousand feet and it was like they were all smoking mush leaf.”

  “We’ve been to that altitude before,” the captain retorted.

  “And the men never let me forget it,” Eric replied. He looked up to where the forest reached its apex. “I think my first mate lost a finger on one of your high altitude routes.”

  Samra checked the hands of the men standing on the bow, but neither of them appeared to be the one missing a finger. She was vaguely disappointed.

  Eric straightened the lapel on his jacket. “Go after the sky people if you like, but I’m taking the Stranger south. We’ll go around this forest and see what we can find worth scavenging on the way.”

  “Father wants lift pods,” Captain Savage said. “Those are the biggest we’ve ever seen. Just a couple could equal months of harvesting kelp patches and tree nodes. Plus, they’d be worth a fortune. I’m not going to just let them go.”

  Samra scowled at the captain’s back.

  “My hold is nearly full,” Eric said. “Father will be happy with what we’ve got now. Besides, he doesn’t know I’ll be bringing him home a missing piece for his collection. While you were antagonizing plant people and salvaging gasbags, I was finding what father is really after.”

  Captain Savage let her arms drop from her hips. “You found another relic?”

  Eric grinned. “Seems these mountain people used it to unlock lighter-than-air flight the way we have, but it looks like they’re using some kind of pneumatic motors to fly them. Who knows what else they’ve unlocked? Trust me, this find will more than make up for the lack of pods.”

  “Stored relic knowledge is only dispersed to the individual learners who’ve earned it. Without the relic key of the person who unlocked the information, having the relic won’t do father any good.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I have the guy who opened it.”

  Captain Savage glanced up at the airship hovering overhead. “You abducted one of the villagers?”

  “I’m finding the people father can use. You’re apparently just kidnapping natives.” He gestured vaguely to Samra. “If you’d spend more time at home with father, you’d know what his real goals are and the sort of people he finds useful. Who knows, if you were a little more att
entive, perhaps he would have given you command of Savage Stranger, and you wouldn’t have to settle for this rattletrap floating dustbin.”

  “I command this ship because it’s mine,” Captain Savage snapped. “You can fly his ship all you want, but it’s still his. That means I own one more airship than you do, little brother.”

  “Borgram told me you’ve still got this tub leveraged to his bank for all it’s worth to cover your expenses. Can’t claim you own it without the note.” Eric Savage smirked and turned his back on her. “Chase the plant people if you want, Erin, but without the rest of the fleet, you’ll have no way to get those pods home. I plan to explore the forest edge with the Stranger, but then I’m turning for port. Father will be eager to have his prize.”

  Eric stepped back aboard his platform and his crewmen began hoisting him up. As he swung out into the open air overhead, he gave Samra another glance and smiled. He took one hand from the ropes and saluted. “Enjoy the flight, ladies. I’ll see you in port.” He then turned his back on them and kept his eyes aloft the rest of the way to his ship.

  Captain Savage muttered a few curses under her breath before turning back to the crew.

  “Sunburn, how much room do we have left for lift pods?”

  “None, Captain. Unless we plan to stow them in our bunks.”

  “Blasted trees. Two weeks we work ourselves ragged salvaging low-altitude junk pods and only when we’re full do we find the ones that could cover our entire costs. If we could anchor down even a few of those high-flyers . . .”

  “They’re not yours,” Samra said, her arms still full of her clothing and oddments. “You can’t just take people’s homes without asking.”

  Captain Savage blinked and looked at her as if she had forgotten she existed.

  “They’re just plants, kid. And your people have plenty to spare. I must have seen fifty pods in that patch when we came into the valley. Any one of them is ten times bigger than what we could glean from a forest vine. You can’t possibly need them all.”

  “They’re called globes. Not pods. And they have names.”

  “Names?” the captain asked. “What, you talk to them or something?”

  Samra stayed silent. She had talked to the Mother. Lots of times. Oftentimes she’d lie in her hammock and wish for things—wish for the Mother to fly them somewhere new. Somewhere better. But she wasn’t going to tell these Grounders that. Not like they would understand.

  “We’re turning south,” Captain Savage declared to the crew. “Cut that refuse loose and trim for speed. My brother may be changing our course but I’m not giving him the satisfaction of getting there first. I want to be docked and offloaded by the time he pulls into the harbor.”

  “Wait! You said you would take me home!” Samra said. “We had a deal.”

  “And we still do,” the captain replied. “Believe me, the first thing we’ll be doing once we’ve offloaded our cargo is hunt down the rest of those pods of yours. You’re going to help me find them.”

  “You can’t steal our globes,” Samra said. “The guardians will stop you.”

  “I’m not going to steal anything,” Captain Savage replied. She fixed her arms to her hips again and stared at the horizon. “I’ll trade for them. What is it your people want? Food? Weapons?” She reached down and plucked an item from Samra’s arms. It was the little leaf-paper book that Rufus had made from her stories. The captain thumbed through a couple of pages and tossed it back to her. “Maybe they need some decent writing supplies. Whatever it is, we can get it for them and they can part with a few of those mothers of yours.”

  “They don’t want anything from Grounders,” Samra said. “Not from you. You attacked them.”

  “We’ve had this discussion, kid. Your people attacked us. As a matter of fact, they owe us for killing my pilot. They’d better be ready to trade now, or they’ll have a different kind of negotiation on their hands.”

  Samra glared at the captain but kept her mouth shut. She didn’t like the implication of what might be traded if they couldn’t find anything else of interest. She didn’t have any intention of becoming a bargaining item.

  She could jump off the ship right now and leave this bunch of pirates to their delusions. But what would she do then? The Sky Forest loomed like a wall to the east, and to the west lay mile upon mile of grassy highlands. She’d seen nothing out there in the way of settlements or civilization. What hope could she possibly find out there?

  No. She was committed now. If these raiders were going to reach her patch again, she’d need to be there.

  The patch didn’t know the danger they were in.

  Samra would have to warn them.

  20

  THE SKY FOREST

  The winds were changing.

  Atlas watched the attached bits of string dancing on the nose and put a hand on the fin extension lever. He powered off the air motors and the telltales began to straighten, forming taut lines. He popped the lateral fins open and pivoted them to catch the wind. The aircraft surged forward.

  He smiled.

  The Dragon was soaring.

  Atlas stood up and spread his arms, letting the air push him as well. He felt as one with his aircraft as a pilot could be. He was riding the wind.

  The sky boy in the front seat didn’t seem impressed.

  “We can soar without power now,” Atlas explained, leaning over the partition between the two seats. “Give the air motors a break and save pressure in the tanks.”

  Kipling was busy petting Fledge in the front seat. The cliff fox had found a place in the boy’s lap and was now fast asleep. Only his whiskers twitched sporadically.

  “My ship is faster than the Express.” Atlas continued. “If Enzo is still flying ahead of us, we should be able to catch up.”

  Kipling looked up. “He isn’t. It got harpooned.”

  Atlas’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “The Sunshine Express. It got harpooned,” Kipling said. “I thought you knew.”

  “When?”

  Kipling stared up at Atlas for a moment longer, then went back to petting Fledge. “I saw from the Mother before we went over the ridge. A big black airship was chasing it. It caught him with harpoons and pulled the ship in.”

  “Is he okay? What happened to Enzo?”

  Kipling shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything else. We flew over the ridge. When I saw you in the field I thought it might be him and he got away somehow, but it was you.”

  Atlas glared at the horizon and clenched the dashboard. He’d suspected that Enzo might have been caught by now but hadn’t wanted to admit to the worry. This made the situation even more serious. He’d hoped that he could simply catch up to Enzo, get him aboard the Dragon and outrun the raiders on a race for home. If he was a prisoner, that meant this was definitely going to be a fight.

  “They have your friend, too?” he asked.

  “Samra,” Kipling said.

  “Why did they take her? What do they want with them?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kipling replied. “I’m getting her back.”

  Atlas could respect that. This kid might have come from the sky but at least he had his priorities straight.

  Ahead, the wall of trees loomed closer. That was going to be another problem.

  “Do you know anything about the Sky Forest?”

  Kipling slid the sleeping cliff fox off his lap and onto the seat, then stood up to study the trees. “We’ve only ever flown over it.”

  “You think they made it through?” Atlas pulled a chart from his bag and unfolded it till he found the section with the Sky Forest illustrated on it. “Are there paths that make it across?”

  Kipling stared at the barrier of plant life. “We were always so high up, it was hard to tell. There’s a river. A big one. We could always see that from the patch. But I can’t remember where it started.”

  Atlas pored over the map and traced his finger along the line of blue running through th
e forest. “It comes out of the mountains. But that’s too far north to start. We’d have to cut through the trees to meet it.”

  He scanned the horizon from north to south, hoping for any glimpse of their quarry. Kipling was doing the same.

  “Why can’t we just go over?” Kipling asked. “Wouldn’t the raiders just do that?”

  Atlas frowned. It’s true there was no sign of the other airships. If they had continued east, the way the patch had drifted, they had to have either gone over the forest, or found a path through. If they went over, it was with equipment the Sun Dragon didn’t possess. “I can’t fly that high.”

  “Too cold?”

  “No,” Atlas declared. He slumped back into his seat. “Too hard to breathe.” He jolted upright. “But wait, I think I saw . . .” He fumbled through the cargo locker until he found one of Enzo’s breathing masks. He traced the rubber hose to a little tank. Elated, he yanked it from the locker. He checked the gauge and his heart sank. The little dial on the pressure gauge was on empty. Enzo had outfitted the airship with a breathing air tank, but Atlas hadn’t thought to fill it.

  “Is that the special air Enzo breathes?” Kipling asked.

  “No.” Atlas passed the spherical tank and mask to Kipling. “It’s empty.”

  He sighed and unlocked the controls, then sat back down and aimed the airship for the tree line. “Okay. We’ll find a way through down here.”

  Kipling studied the wall of green ahead, appraising its mystery-laden shadows, then searched both other directions. He frowned but apparently had no argument. After a moment he put the tank in the front cargo locker and sat back down. Before he got settled, he propped his bone sword up next to him where it would be easy to grab. Atlas watched the maneuver but didn’t say anything. He did free up one of the harpoons in his gear to keep it handy.

  The wall of plants rose gradually from the heather, giving the false impression that the terrain was leveling out, when in fact the hillside continued to slope away below it like a sandy shore disappearing beneath the sea. Farther across this new floor of green, the trees rose.